Embedded Traffic Monitor

This is the initial release of the embedded traffic monitor which I implemented on an XMOS XC-3 development kit. It has a 256×32 VFD attached to it with a custom board that was designed from another application (hence the buttons/IR sensor you’ll notice if you are observant). Full source code is available from the embedded traffic monitor sourceforge page.

More information and pictures after the break…

The basic premise of the system is that data comes in and then goes out the other side (to general traffic the device looks like a wire) and information about that traffic collected on its way through (so at the moment it just looks at packet byte length). The data is then aggregated appropriately with the throughput being averaged over a second (sample at an interval of 100mS).

The information as well as being displayed on screen (via a simple I2C bus) is stored to an SPI flash once every 10s. This is so that if power is lost then the logged data is not.

Current Feature Summary:

• Dual MII ethernet interface
• I2C VFD for showing the resulting information
• Saving of data to on-board SPI flash memory

Future features:

• Internal switch for custom applications (so you can access the device over IP)
• A web interface to allow a user to reset stored data and maybe produce a SVG graph?
• Change display for lower cost, lower power OLED? (Farnell order code: 1498842)

And some pictures:

XC-3 Network Monitor and Display

Network Monitor Display showing a graph and data rates